After searching on the internet, ringing around and exchanging emails with various clubs, I decided to take the plunge and go and visit AAA Microlights in Cambridgeshire. So on a nice day I took a drive over to Chatteris airfield where they are based. Finding them the first time was fun, you turn off the B1093 road on to a single track lane called Block Fen Drove that is signed for a parachute and microlight centre, then after around a mile you turn down an unmade up track that leads to the clubs. The first set of building are those belonging to the microlight club. I parked outside and walk passed the hanger and on to a small red “hut”, more a terrapin type building where a few people were standing, the chief flying instructor (CFI) had just gone up with a student so I was introduced to the assistant flying instructor ( AFI ) a very pleasant and welcoming young lady called Katie. We chatted for a while and then she took me over and showed me around a C42 microlight, including sitting me in it and showing me the controls. My first impressions were mixed, the wings were not made of metal I remembering thinking, they have an aluminium frame but are covered in a fabric call GT-foil! But sat inside it has more room than some other airplanes e.g. Cessna 152.
We then went back into the clubhouse aka the “hut” and had a cup of tea, they drink a lot of tea, and waited for Mike the CFI to return.
Mike is a very approachable person with many years flying experience and not just in microlights, after we chatted for a while I decided I liked the club and the people in it and booked up my first lesson for Thursday 18th July 2013.